Western Land Race (Signed) (Original)

Artist: Ron Embleton
Medium: Gouache on Board
Size: 13" x 11" (335mm x 270mm)
Date: 1972
Signature: Signed by artist bottom right
Code: EmbletonWOW3

This is the Signed unique original Gouache painting by Ron Embleton.

At precisely twelve noon on September 16, 1893 a cannon's boom unleashed the largest land rush America ever saw. Carried by all kinds of transportation - horses, wagons, trains, bicycles or on foot - an estimated 100,000 raced to claim plots of land in an area of land in northern Oklahoma Territory known as the Cherokee Strip. There had been a number of previous land rushes in the Territory - but this was the big one.

In 1828 Congress designated the land that would become Oklahoma as Indian Territory. White settlers were required to leave, and a number of tribes from the East and South were forcibly moved into the area from their ancestral lands. Chief among these were the Five Civilized Tribes - the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole - who allied themselves with the South during the Civil War.

Following the war, the US government looked upon these tribes as defeated enemies. This animosity combined with increasing pressure to open up the Indian Territory to white settlement prompted the first land rush in 1885, a second followed in 1889. By the time of the Oklahoma land rush of 1893, America was in the grip of the worst economic depression it had ever experienced. This was one of the factors that swelled the number of expectant land-seekers that day.

Many would be disappointed. There were only 42,000 parcels of land available - far too few to satisfy the hopes of all those who raced for land that day. Additionally, many of the "Boomers" - those who had waited for the cannon's boom before rushing into the land claim - found that a number of the choice plots had already been claimed by "Sooners" who had snuck into the land claim area before the race began. The impact of the land rush was immediate, transforming the terrain almost overnight. Gorgeous dramatic art by the incomparable Ron Embleton originally published in World of Wonder #105 as part of the fondly remembered The Winning of the West series (part 10) in 1972. A rare example of an Embleton signed strip in this series.

• Artist Biography
  Ronald Sydney Embleton (6 October 1930 - 13 February 1988; Limehouse, London, UK)
  Born in Limehouse, London in 1930, Embleton began drawing as a young boy, submitting a cartoon to the News of the World at the age of 9 and, at 12, winning a national poster competition.
  
  In 1946 Embleton went to the South-East Essex Technical College and School of Art. There he had the incredible good fortune to be taught by David Bomberg, one of the greatest ? though at that time sadly under-appreciated ? British artists of the twentieth century.
  
  At age 17 he earned himself a place in a commercial studio but soon left to work freelance, drawing comic strips for many of the small publishers who sprang up shortly after the war.
  
  He was soon drawing for the major publishers. His most fondly remembered strips include Strongbow the Mighty in Mickey Mouse Weekly, Wulf the Briton in Express Weekly, Wrath of the Gods in Boys' World, Tales of the Trigan Empire and Johnny Frog in Eagle and Stingray in TV Century 21.
  
  Embleton also provided the illustrations that appeared in the title credits for the Captain Scarlet TV series, and dozens of paintings for prints and newspaper strips. A meticulous artist, his illustrations appeared in Look and Learn for many years, amongst them the historical series Roger?s Rangers.
  
  Oh, Wicked Wanda! was a British full-colour satirical and saucy adult comic strip, written by Frederic Mullally and drawn by Ron Embleton. The strip regularly appeared in Penthouse magazine from 1973 to 1980 and was followed by Embleton's equally saucy dark humoured Merry Widow strip, written by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione.
  
  Less well known, however, was his equally energetic career as an oil painter. In fact, being a painter had been his life's ambition ? his 'driving force', according to his daughter Gillian. It was only his remarkable success as an illustrator that in the end largely diverted him from the painter's path.
  
  Embleton died on 13 February 1988 at the relatively young age of 57 after a lifetime of truly prodigious artistic output of remarkable quality.